


The Winners of the Game

by TwilightLegacy13



Category: The Shadow Game - Amanda Foody
Genre: Angst, Canon Divergence, Gen, Mentions of Death, One Shot, Planned/Implied Murder, Prompt Fic, Revenge, Spoilers for Queen of Volts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-03
Updated: 2021-01-03
Packaged: 2021-03-13 19:13:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,396
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28533462
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TwilightLegacy13/pseuds/TwilightLegacy13
Summary: Once the game ends, even the winners have things left unresolved.  So Grace Watson finds herself outside Rebecca's jail cell with a score to settle.Spoilers for Queen of Volts!  Canon divergence in that Rebecca doesn't immediately die after the game ends, and she and Bryce both go to jail while they wait for their sentencing.
Kudos: 1





	The Winners of the Game

**Author's Note:**

> This is the first Shadow Game fic that I'm posting, so I hope you like it! I'm not the best with canon divergence, but I saw this dialogue prompt and immediately thought of Grace and Rebecca. It wasn't supposed to be as long as it turned out, but it is what it is 😂
> 
> Content warnings: Discussions of death, grief, serious illness (with the main symptom being coughing up blood), threats, planned murder, language.

Grace Watson paused in front of the door, the twisted familiarity enough to disconcert her. She’d lived in a jail for as long as she worked in the Orphan Guild, employed by the very person she intended to visit. This conversation was one that couldn’t wait, but that didn’t mean she had to enjoy setting foot in a prison again.

She was comforted by knowing that while this inmate deserved to be there more than anyone else, the sentence would be cut very short indeed.

Oh, how tragic.

She pulled out her pocket mirror and reapplied her eyeliner before stepping inside. The jail’s entrance was thick with whiteboots, as she knew it would be, but each uniform was a slap to her perfect poker face. She channeled the loss, the grief, the _anger_ into her stride forward until she reached the desk.

“I mean to visit a prisoner,” Grace said without introduction or pleasantries.

The whiteboot nodded, his eyes traveling down her bold outfit before refocusing on her face. “Which inmate, and what is your relation to them?”

“Former colleague.” She relished the feel of the word “former” in her mouth. “Rebecca Janus.”

Now his wandering eyes widened. “You sure, missy? She was part of the plan that turned this whole city upside down.”

She planted her hands on the counter and leaned forward, not breaking eye contact. “Oh, I’m well aware.”

“Right away,” the whiteboot muttered. Few people managed to be the recipient of her death stare without caving to her demands, and alas, this man did not seem to be strong of heart. “Now, ordinarily we’d bring the prisoner out to talk to you through glass—but she seems to be very ill, so I don’t think there’s a threat. We can take you to the cell if we check you for weapons and monitor you by the door.”

Grace could have put up a fight, but she knew her window of time was limited. Before long, Rebecca would probably be dead and then she wouldn’t have time to live out her last moments in fear. That wouldn’t do at all, so Grace submitted to being checked for anything that could be seen as a threat before being led down the heavily guarded hallways and down to the cell blocks.

Absently, she wondered where Bryce was being held. She couldn’t imagine that they’d been imprisoned in cells beside each other.

The whiteboot gestured towards one of the cell doors before retreating several steps. He was well within range if anything were to happen, as were the countless others lining the corridor, but thankfully out of earshot. She didn’t intend to play nice to the one person who’d never heard the word.

Grace stepped up to the bars, through which she could see Rebecca Janus huddled on the floor in the corner. She looked awful—her long blond hair was dirty and matted, she was deathly pale, and her sleeves were stained scarlet from all the coughing. It was a wonder she was still breathing at all.

 _Not for long. I won’t allow that_.

She was so quiet and motionless that Grace had begun to wonder if she was asleep when she rasped, “I’m not much for company.”

“No,” Grace agreed, waiting to keep speaking until Rebecca's eyes fluttered open. “You never claimed to be.”

“You.” She sounded like she’d spent most of her time here swallowing broken glass, but her voice didn’t seem to be a deterrent. Slowly, she pushed herself into a hunched sitting position. “Don’t you have…somewhere to be? With—” she broke into a coughing fit, red darkening the few clean patches of her sleeve. “With your darling Séance?”

Grace wrapped her hands around the bars with deliberate leisure. “I have all the time in the world. A pity you don’t.”

“What…did I ever do to you?”

That question was insulting to the point of ridicule, so Grace did the only thing she could—she laughed. And laughed and laughed, until Rebecca clawed her way to her feet, leaning into the wall for support.

“You’re joking,” Grace said finally. “Right?”

“I wouldn’t waste my time with jokes,” Rebecca muttered.

She kept her hatred at bay with a lazy smile. “No, I suppose you wouldn’t.”

“So?” Rebecca asked. “You won. You…and Séance, Pup, and the lot of them. You got…what you wanted.”

Grace’s fingers flexed, and if the whiteboots hadn’t been watching, she would have gladly attacked her through the bars. They’d taken her eyeliner pencil—which was smart, considering how many people she’d stabbed with those—but they’d somehow missed the gun she kept strapped to her thigh.

The gun Roy had known about. Roy, who had died because of the woman in front of her.

“You pretended to be Ivory and tricked this whole city,” Grace began, her voice low even as it shook with anger. “You wanted your power and you paid for it with blood. You took me out of that damn One-Way House and made me _grateful_ for it—for you and your shatz boyfriend who thought it was a favor. If it weren’t for you, I wouldn’t be a murderer.”

“As if you care.” She laughed roughly. “We’re all Sinners.”

Grace was whispering, but her words carried all the weight of a shout. “Because you made me one! You made me put my life into your worthless hands for a game I didn’t ask to play. And if I were Faithful, I’d say it was a miracle I survived, because look at you now. You’re pathetic and dying alone. You lost, Rebecca, but I sure as hell didn’t win.”

“New Reynes doesn’t have…room for middle ground.” She pushed away from the wall, standing unsteadily but unsupported. “It’s a game. You win or you lose. Looks like…you got your happy ending.”

“My boyfriend—an innocent, good man—died at the hands of a second who wasn’t really yours, for a game you created to save yourself.” A sob escaped Grace, though no tears fell from her eyes. She didn’t bother to calm down her breathing. Let this monster see the damage she’d done. “Where am I now? Grieving and alone, trapped in a bank all day at a job I hate, with people who supposedly beat your twisted game! How is this winning? Where the _fuck_ is my happy ending?”

Rebecca stumbled closer, falling forward into the bars. “In a cemetery. Most likely.”

And that was another reason why she had always despised the Orphan Guild secretary. Grace wasn’t a kind person, but Rebecca was just cruel.

“And yours is in another jail cell,” Grace told her, because really, she’d crossed every kind of line a long time ago. “Waiting torturously for his sentence. He’ll probably face a noose in Liberty Square before the week’s end. You would too if you lived that long, but of course you won’t. You can barely stand now. In fact, Bryce knows it. He must be agonizing over it as we speak, weeping for all the ways he failed, wondering if you’re gone already, wishing he could be here with you. But he isn’t, is he? Instead you have me.”

Rebecca inhaled to respond but immediately started coughing. She grabbed at the cell bars as blood sprayed across Grace’s white-knuckled fingers. She didn’t recoil. After all, she was no stranger to having blood on her hands.

The coughing fit didn’t stop—if anything, it intensified, and the whiteboots rushed forward to the door. Grace let them drag her a few steps back while they briefly checked the prisoner through the bars and determined that her visitor had done nothing to cause the outburst.

Finally, her coughs died down, and they left her looking many years older. Blood trickled out of her mouth, and she made brief eye contact with Grace before her knees buckled. Her pale eyes were still open, and she was still breathing, albeit raggedly. It seemed, though, that she could no longer stand.

“Congratulations,” Rebecca said hoarsely. “My cruelty…is yours.”

The whiteboot from before gripped Grace's arm, indicating that it was time to end this conversation, but she wouldn’t go without having the last word. “How does it feel, to have given that to me before you go? A little triumph that you know won’t last long enough to matter? I hope it feels so much like winning that it hurts.”

With that, she turned and walked away, her combat boots clicking against the floor. Before they returned to the lobby, though, she turned to the whiteboot standing beside her.

Her cruelty might be Rebecca’s, but she’d earned every ounce of her bitterness, and she wasn't finished yet.

“I have another request before I leave,” she said imperiously, tipping up her chin. “I want to see the Guildmaster.”

“Missy, you already—”

“I don’t want to talk to him,” Grace interrupted. “Don’t worry, I don’t have a grudge against him. I just want to see him again before his sentencing.”

He eyed her warily, but sighed and led her down to another cell block. This time he did not back up to give her space once they arrived at the cell they were looking for, but it didn't make a difference. She hadn’t been lying; she really didn’t intend to say a word to him.

Bryce Balfour had never looked healthy, but now he was a wreck. The dark circles beneath his eyes were even more pronounced, his face was flushed from crying, and if he got any thinner he might actually become a ghost. Surprise didn’t even register in his eyes when he saw Grace, though his shoulders slumped as though he were too exhausted to entertain company.

But that was fine. She had only come here to be friendly, and then to leave.

So Grace waved. It was such a simple gesture, a quick goodbye after all the time they’d spent together in the Guild. There was nothing malicious about it. It was just a wave.

Bryce’s eyes followed the movement of her hand and he exhaled sharply, looking like he had been punched in the gut. And if her hands were still covered in Rebecca’s blood, then it didn’t much matter. She’d never have done it if Rebecca hadn’t taught her.

Grace smiled at him once before walking back to the jail lobby. She stopped at the door, looking down in shock as if only just noticing the state of her hands. “Oh! Where’s the bathroom?”

“Just this way,” the whiteboot said with more than a little disgust. She had to believe that he saw a lot of blood in his job, so he probably just wanted her to leave.

He hovered over her shoulder while she washed her hands, watching the red disappear down the sink along with any hopes Bryce might have had before Grace waved at him. It wasn’t enough. Breaking Bryce’s heart wouldn’t bring Roy back, and it wouldn’t give her revenge against the person to blame for it.

She turned off the faucet and looked up at the whiteboot in the mirror, smiling. It was an obviously fake smile, but after all of the horrible things done by the two people she’d just visited, a genuine one would make her even more suspicious. And she couldn’t have that when she still had work to do.

Once she left the jail with clean hands that she was about to get dirty again, Grace found her way to the nearest payphone and dialed her branch of the National Bank. Three rings later, Marcy picked up. “Hello, this—”

“Marcy,” Grace interrupted. “Is Enne there?”

“Wh- Grace? Where have you been?”

She took the gun out from beneath her skirt so she could get at the very different sort of weapon she kept in a pouch beside the strap on her thigh. “I’ll explain when I get back. Where’s Enne?”

“In a—Charlotte, you’re going to break that!” Marcy exclaimed after an audible thud in the background. “Sorry. Enne’s in a meeting with Levi and Harrison.”

 _Muck_. She needed someone to cover for her, and Enne Scordata was the best option. Still, the Spirits might not be a gang anymore, but they understood what their bond meant.

Marcy would have to be enough.

“I need you to do me a favor,” Grace said in a rush, slipping the gun back into place and glancing around to make sure no one was outside the telephone booth. “And Charlotte if she’s willing.”

“Sure,” she agreed. “What do you need?”

“I need you to finish up the auditing I’d been working on before I left,” she instructed, reaching into the heel of her boot where she still kept her lockpicks. “And I know how that sounds, Marcy, but I’ll cover your work for the next few days if you want. When you’re done, don’t wait for me to come back. Sign the audits with my handwriting, with the date and time of signature, and send it along to the recordkeeping desk with the rest of our paperwork for the day.”

There was a brief moment of silence on the other line. Then Marcy’s voice was more hushed, as if she were covering up the receiver while she spoke. “Why do you want me to forge your signature? You can just sign it when you come back.”

“I’ve been in the office all day,” she said, hoping the other girl took her meaning. “I won’t ‘come back’ because I never left. The signature is proof.”

“What are you doing, Grace?” Marcy asked apprehensively.

She bit her lip. “Nothing I’ll get caught for.”

A sharp sigh, and then Marcy relented. “I can’t stop you, but be _careful_. We’ll do the audits and sign them.”

She exhaled in relief. “Thank you, Marcy.”

“Thank me by staying safe and not doing anything stupid.”

“I’ll do the first. Get to work.” Grace hung up, taking a deep breath before exiting the phone booth again.

She would bide her time for a little bit, and then make her move. Once she got in, it would be easy enough to finish what she’d started—and her target was close enough to death already that it would be far easier to escape suspicion. She had a score to settle, the cruelty to match it, and one hell of an alibi.

**Author's Note:**

> Please let me know what you think! You can find me on Tumblr at a-blade-disguised-as-a-girl!


End file.
